The Most Hated Man In The Gaming Industry Today?

The year is coming to an end and other than the typical end of the world theories and game of the year awards, what have we got left to be excited about? Well how about a new take on the most hated guy in the gaming industry today?

Originally I was going to make this article a bit of a guessing game, lay out a few clues and then see how many of you would be able to figure it out but in all honesty, you’d guess it within 20 seconds anyway. I don’t really like to use the word hate in a serious sense, especially towards an individual, but judging by the thousands upon thousands of comments across the internet, other people don’t feel the same way.

I’m talking about the developer of a certain “AAA” game, who was also the main man behind a certain game that received the lowest review score in GameSpot history. A name that strikes immediate depression into any of those unfortunate enough to hear it, Sergey Titov. Not familiar with Mr. Titov? Well he’s most well known for his work developing The War Z but he was also behind a rather lackluster Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing. To demonstrate the capacity of awesomeness from Sergey, I’ve added a little video below:

Not so bad right? Assuming the game released in 1990, sadly however this is a 2004 title that scored a deserved 1.0 on GameSpot. Apparently though the hint was not received as Sergy became involved in a few projects before popping up in the latest addition to the “survival MMO”, The War Z. Unless you’ve been living in a cave and surviving on your own toenail clippings, or you’ve got better things to do with your time than waste it on a dead game, you’re undoubtedly aware of the fiasco that is The War Z

There are hundreds of posts across the internet, from the biggest names in gaming to the smaller blogs, so I won’t go into huge detail here but I will say, he has flat out lied on a massive number of occasions. I’m not talking about basic little fibs here, like promising a feature that gets delayed as we’re all used to that, no I’m talking about complete lies that he had zero chance of covering up. It would be like denying you’ve just robbed a bank when you’re caught with a gun and SWAG bag whilst still inside the vault you just opened with C4. For more information surrounding the highly questionable development process of The War Z, check out the informative article at Forbes.

If you’re a regular visitor here at Gamers Heroes you’ll know that we have always promised to deliver honest, unbiased articles without any pressure from external sources. We’ve never taken a stab directly at developers or individuals before but if we hope to maintain the level of honesty that we pride ourselves on providing, something had to be said. We’ve all seen bad games but as in any work place, developers and publishers learn and improve over time but the final straw for me was the addition of War Z to Steam.

Now I’ve been using Steam for years and years, it’s a great service and Valve happen to be one of my favorite game developers. So when I noticed that War Z was added, with a list of completely fabricated features, I was stunned. Steam is a trusted source for thousands of gamers, in fact one user actually told me they didn’t trust the game until it appeared on Steam, which prompted their purchase.

They said the game offered slots of 100 player servers, which it did not. They also said that Normal and Hardcore modes were available, although Hardcore offered exactly the same experience. They boasted a map size that didn’t exist and a skill system that hasn’t even been tested thoroughly yet. All of these were labeled as complete features on the Steam Store page. You know what Sergey’s response was?

I’m sure there’ll be people who will look into small details and will say “no I was mislead,” where in fact they imagined something to themselves without checking details first. I’m sure that Steam have it’s refund policies that should handle those situations.

I think there’s difference between false claims and perception of the text.

Sorry. I’m not the greatest ambassador to the English language but to say you offer 100 slot servers, when you offer 50, that’s the definition of misleading or more correctly, flat out lies. Sergey has taken the trust that Valve place into developers and that players put into publishers, and pissed all over it before setting it ablaze and throwing it into a cesspool. Is it professional for us to be so unforgiving towards an individual? Not really and Sergey could be the nicest guy you’ll ever meet on the street. However, we’re gamers and we’re not about to sit by and watch as he totally destroys the hopes of thousands with lies and misinformation.

What about other developers? You post your game as an indie title on Steam. What kind of impact is that going to have for players looking at indie titles in the future? There are dozens of indie teams out there that bust their balls 80 hours a week to bring something a little fresh to the scene, even they must feel some disrespect by the War Z fiasco.

Despite the fact this is the internet and I’ll probably never meet any of you in person, we share common ground. We all love gaming, we love becoming engrossed in new characters and new experiences. We love getting our moneys worth, meeting like-minded people and creating new memories to share. What we don’t love is some asshat that thinks he is free to lie about whatever he pleases because the industry is far too soft to pull him on it. We’re not the only ones thinking it, but we may be the only ones without the corporate restrictions that would block us from posting it.

Well not here. Although we’ve featured a few articles, interviews and videos for The War Z, after our upcoming review all coverage will stop. We will not post any more War Z related content out of respect for the industry. We deal with developers, publishers, indie teams and PR reps on a daily basis, all of which go the extra mile to provide their fans with new information, game ideas and more.

There’s thousands of players that have requested refunds, with many calling claims of “False Advertising” but very few have the legal knowledge or financial backing to follow it through. So what’s left? Let your feet do the talking.

If you purchased the game on Steam, you’re able to get a refund if you feel the store page was misleading. It’s sad really as The War Z has a massive amount of potential and even in its current state it can provide some really fun times, but that does not excuse the fact that the developers have shown absolutely no respect for their players or the industry. Shame on you.

Thanks to the likes of Forbes, for their highly detailed take on the “scam” of The War Z, and GameSpot for their relentless interview, gamers do have a voice, we’re just adding ours.

About author

Blaine "Captain Camper" Smith is one of the original founders of Gamers Heroes. Now operating under the guise of Editor-in-Chief (purely because we felt the position was needed for public relations purposes), he's tasked with a lot of the kind of jobs that would put you to sleep at your desk.

When he's not catching some Zs, you'll likely find him arguing points he knows nothing about, playing the latest rogue-like he'll never complete, or breaking something on the website that never needed fixing.